Friday, December 11, 2009

Guest Blogger "Thomist": The Debate Continues

And here is the second half of Thomist's defense of our beliefs against moral relativism:

"Anonamouth,

Your arguments are just as flawed in arguing against me as they were arguing against Cam. You go on to state “that old hackneyed chestnut "science doesn't disprove religion." This reveals a deep misunderstanding of science,” blah blah blah. True science does not disprove God. It cannot do so, for God is the ultimate truth. That being understood, God stands outside of creation and time. He does not fall victim to pathetic attempts to relegate him to some sort of atheistically contrived notion of the past; namely that he was merely created by man to be a comfort to them. He cannot be stuffed into a beaker, nor dissected and analyzed at a lab in Berkley. He is outside of creation.

The best and only way to understand God is to understand him through his creations and revelations. The creations of God are the universe and everything in it. By studying this “keyhole” and its shape we should be able to understand something about the “key” (Rahner). In this way can science lead us to a better understanding of God. The revelation of God is ultimately Jesus Christ’s incarnation as the Son of God. Other lesser forms of revelation are the Bible, Tradition, Magisterium, and then eventually personal revelation when it happens. The Bible, Tradition and the Magisterium are all public revelations and can be studied rationally. Jesus is the ultimate revelation and is best studied by following Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis. Personal revelation, if you are fortunate to receive it, is God’s way of building and leading you to more faith. Unless this happens to you personally you are unlikely to ever be able to study it. Given that there are ways in which to know God, it is possible to rationally come to the conclusion that God does exist. Your personal method would most likely dismiss revelation and just stick with creation. In this creation you are unlikely to ever come up with anything that concretely confirms God’s existence. Though you most certainly will never come up with anything that will negate his existence either. Therefore, you, to be a true man of science, would have to study and endeavor into revelation.


There in lies the burden of proof. You mistakenly claim that I have to prove God’s existence. This is a false notion. I do not. For this conversation to work you have to disprove his existence. You came onto a Catholic website to be a troll and lament the loss of the God whom you still unknowingly seek. Therefore to deny the responsibility to actually disprove God’s existence is intellectual laziness and failed rationale. Historically speaking faith in God is older than atheism. As such, the burden of proof lies with you. Go ahead mouth! Have at it. Flounder about in your ineptness trying to discredit God.

Finally you seek to backtrack and push aside the embarrassing little mistake of your ignorance of our faith. By claiming your ignorance of Catholicism is inconsequential you err. Anonamouth, you directly attacked our faith and did so without any proof or real tangible arguments. It shows the readers that you are already mistaken in your previous attacks on the faith. It shows your deficit in logical aptness and screams of your failure to provide an intelligent response to our critique of your attacks on our faith. When you said, “Your other point, which boils down to "you don't know!" is irrelevant” it is an admission that would have been better phrased, as “I don’t know you!” That would have more accurate and truthful. You clearly don’t know us, nor understand us.

Therefore, this is my invitation to you Anonamouth to get to know us. I offer genuine friendship to you if you are willing accept it. I challenge you to step into the realm of revelation. Get to know us. It’s not that hard. At the very least in the end if you don’t agree with us you can then disagree intelligently. Honestly, seeing you in action here is like watching a bear cub trying to play with a kick ball; slow and witless!

Take care, Buddy."

7 comments:

  1. Oh my, oh my. What an incredible load. Honestly, your lack of reason makes it absolutely clear that there is no use talking to you - which, in all fairness, I knew coming into this. Rather than address all of your ramblings, I'll appeal to the readers who may be following this thread.

    1) Notice how he calls names, which was supposed to be against the rules. How loving!

    2. Notice how he alternates between anger and "brotherly love" - he gets on his rant, and then tries to stop himself. Which is the "real him"?

    3. Notice how he STARTS with the conclusion that there is a god, and then argues that it is up to me to disprove it. And, incredibly, he seems to think that is logical! (In fact, he is an atheist when it comes to Zeus, Shiva, The Great Juju in the sky, but it is absolutely inconceivable that HIS religion be anything but completely true.)

    4. Notice how he tries to maintain the victim stance. This is an argument tool I teach my students about - he acts as if he is defending himself, as in "you came to our site" - being absolutely unaware that it is posted on the web, and the site even invites comments! As with many of his ilk, he wants to say what he wants to say with no repercussions. By the way, I have a friend who keeps forwarding me these links to laugh at...I would never come here on my own. Just an aside.

    5. Notice how he wants to allude to something bigger and majestic rather than stick with facts...he does this because the more specific he is, the more crazy he sounds. One would ask him: does he believe the spread of AIDS in Africa would be slowed by condoms, and the evil that the church does cannot be measured? How old does he think the earth is? Does he REALLY think all of the animals on the earth fit into one boat? A guy rose from the dead? Or does he tap-dance around the crazy trying to distance himself.

    Yikes. Reading all of that was like listening to a scientologist. What...a...load.

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  2. I'm glad you're not my teacher. Although who knows, you sound like some of the ever so enlightened Professors that Thomist gets to deal with on a regular basis. But since you've made it clear that you aren't really here for any sort of real dialogue (I DID try to talk to you respectfully and you were COMPLETELY UNABLE to hide your condescension from day one... I guess my "passive aggression" would be a big step up, manners wise from your post) it's probably best if you did show yourself the door. I'm AMAZED that my little blog took up so much of your very important time. When I find something that I think is ridiculous, I don't waste time on it. Life's way too short for that.

    And I will keep praying for you. All your comments make me feel very sad, in a way I am quite sure you don't understand (and will take the wrong way).

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  3. Anonamouth,

    My little bear cub, you are just so cute! Your total inability to be effacious in your arguments has made you a bit grumpy. And it saddens me that I already know what you are going to do. You’re already appealing to the audience to garner support and then you’re going to leave us aren’t you? Just write us off as those crazy theists who love Jesus a bit too much and are soft in the head. Never mind the fact that their arguments deflated my intellectual superiority; it was just an off day. Honestly, the Chinese food we had made me a bit sleepy and I couldn’t concentrate when I was arguing. It’s not because they had any good points, you see, for they never had good points; but rather that I was tired. And sick. That h1n1 flu thing is going around and I don’t feel so great. In the end though they can’t be helped. They are too crazy and insane and living in a fantasy world. I want no part of that Jesus fellow, thank you very much! Adieu.

    I still have a question or two for you before you leave us. I gave you a nickname. You stated that you liked your nickname. Logically any rational person would not consider this mockery but rather a sign of friendship. Yet, you try to deceive the reader into believing that I am being cruel to you. Furthermore you then insinuate that I am not being Christian by your sarcastic remark “how loving!” because as we all know Christians are supposed to be loving, but deep down they’re really a bunch of repressed hypocrites. My question, therefore is, why is it seemingly impossible for you to accept a gesture of friendship for what it is? Why try to mislead the readers you are supposedly trying to communicate with? What good does that do anyone?

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  4. Secondly, anger and brotherly love go hand in hand. If you’ve never experienced this I doubt you have any brothers. They are not mutually exclusive. I’m not exactly playing a game of smoke and mirrors here with what sort of person I am. I’m pretty straightforward and to the point. Ironically, your last post seems to be the communicative of whom you are choosing to be.

    In your third argument the reader has no doubt noticed some confusion on your part as to what an atheist is. An atheist does not believe in any god. It does not mean that my rejection of pagan gods makes me an atheist. Why you might ask? By reason of my faith in the true God of the Trinity, I am, by definition, a Christian and not an atheist. Aside from this confusion is your magical thinking that the burden of proof is somehow upon me. As we discussed earlier it is not given that you have to come onto a Catholic website. Decorum demands that you present your proof, which thus far in the letter has not been forthcoming.

    In your fourth section you claim that I am acting like a victim. That’s a strange argument to state. Honestly, I do believe you are the victim in this long conversation. While I do love debating with you, there is still the feeling that I have of being a cat that is playing with a mouse. Furthermore, you contradict your claims that I am the one acting like a victim when the first appeal that you make to the readers is that I have called you names in some sort of ridiculous plot to get pity. It isn’t exactly a strong argument to stress your claims against me. Then you go on to make the blunder of admitting that you’re trolling these sights merely to laugh at them and the people who take them seriously, IE anyone who loves Jesus. By the same token you insult the hostess of this website who has been nothing but gracious and inviting to you. She has posted all your responses honestly and fairly; without edit, which we both know does not happen at a lot of websites. What exactly is your goal in doing this? This is beyond any logical scheme that you might have had to get the readers to be at any way sympathetic to your cause. What good does it do you to convince the reader that you’re an arrogant jerk? How does this not prove to the reader that you and your truth claims are anything but rational?

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  5. In your final pleas to the reader you get awfully excited by the standard rhetoric against Catholicism and what you mistakenly believe Catholicism teaches. In dealing with AIDS I do not need to deal exclusively with Africa. As a world wide epidemic my focus and Catholicism’s should focus on the global perspective of the problem. The truth is very simply put that if Catholicism was followed AIDS would fall of the face of the Earth. It would cease to be an epidemic and be relegated to the history books along with the Black Death. AIDS is spread through drug use. Which Catholicism teaches is a sin. If the world followed Catholicism’s teaching, AIDS would not be spread via drug use. AIDS was also spread via blood transfusions, a tragic reality that is no longer impacting the world thanks to modern medicines blood screening techniques. Catholicism has no quarrel in this aspect of the AIDS debate. The third and by far largest expansion of AIDS is due to promiscuous sex. Sex, Catholicism teaches is promiscuous when it comes out of wedlock especially with multiple partners. Had Catholic morality been followed and lived up to in the World as it is taught, AIDS would have ceased to be a scourge of mankind. To anyone who would like some proof I offer this case as reported by Forbes; http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0803/opinions-jihad-africa-hiv-ideas-opinions.html

    After arguing against the evilness of the Church, again no proof given, you argue against erroneously against the supposed belief of the age of the planet. Catholicism has yet to give a verbatim age to the planet. What you then try to link is Catholicism with a form of Fundamentalism that demands that it’s adherents believe the Earth is anywhere between 6,000 to 10,000 years old. Again your failure to understand Christianity in its complexity severely limits the effective quality of your arguments. The Catholic Church requires no such belief.

    Finally, you mistakenly argue against the Catholic understanding and interpretation of the bible. You claim that If Catholics or any Christian does not believe in a strict literal interpretation of the bible that they are backpedaling and trying to avoid modern critiques against their faith. To demolish this simple construct of an argument we simply need to find one Catholic or Christian in antiquity to pose a contrary view to your understanding of Catholic biblical interpretation. Origen himself back in the 3rd century AD refutes your skewed understanding of biblical interpretation. A nice little article can be found at: http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/article_origen_mccartney.html This is clearly not a case of Christianity’s back tracking, but is implicit in the historical tradition of the universal Church.
    Given, this new insight I would hope that you stick around here for a bit to get to understand us better. In time I hope to read your responses and not cringe at your ignorance of our faith or us. Though, I rather enjoy out cat and mouse antics.

    Yours in Christ,
    Thomist

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  6. I don't think he is coming back. Too bad. I'm curious why someone who admits to lurking the web feels he must post "anon". Even a fictitious name & goofy picture is better. My name is real & the pic is only a little fictitious. I'm actually cuter & more muscular. Braw Hahahahahaa.

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  7. Good thing I translated those links above before looking at them- looks like someone spammed your comment section with nasty stuff.

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